


it's a state of mind that's bringing you down

by seeingrightly



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 08:45:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15215408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: The doors open, and Newt is standing in the middle of the room, looking lost. He’s still in the remains of his suit. There’s dried blood on his face and down his neck onto his clothing. A choked sound punches its way of of Hermann, and Newt looks up, clearly not expecting him. Newt’s hands, which had been fiddling with one of the rings they’ve inexplicably left on him, drop to his sides, and his mouth opens just slightly.





	it's a state of mind that's bringing you down

**Author's Note:**

> [lindsey](http://pendragoff.tumblr.com) hexed me and i woke up at 8am from a dream where i was hermann and i was making out with newt and i used the plot of the dream to then write this fic by 10am :/
> 
> title from "i know" by aly and aj lmao

 

 

 

The doors open, and Newt is standing in the middle of the room, looking lost. He’s still in the remains of his suit. There’s dried blood on his face and down his neck onto his clothing. A choked sound punches its way of of Hermann, and Newt looks up, clearly not expecting him. Newt’s hands, which had been fiddling with one of the rings they’ve inexplicably left on him, drop to his sides, and his mouth opens just slightly.

 

“Oh,” he says hoarsely.

 

“You,” Hermann starts, but there are too many ways to finish the sentence, so many that he cannot possibly pick just one, and so he stops.

 

Action instead, then. He steps into the room and the doors slide shut behind him. Newt watches quietly as Hermann steps up to him, pauses for a second, wraps him in his arms. He holds Newt tightly, one arm around his shoulders and their heads pressed close together. After a moment, Newt lets out what feels like a full-body sigh, a significant amount of tension leaving him all at once, and he brings his own arms up around Hermann’s back, leaning into him.

 

Hermann is not sure how long they stay like that, but there is something else he needs to do, so eventually he pulls back, albeit not very far. He moves his arm from Newt’s shoulders so that he is just barely touching the back of Newt’s head, and he leans forward and kisses Newt.

 

Newt’s hands fist into the back of Hermann’s sweater in surprise, but then he kisses back, pressing upward. Hermann lets himself grip the back of Newt’s head and drops his other arm from Newt’s back to lean on his cane again, to keep himself steady. He feels like he is going to shake right out of his skin; he feels like two seconds of being back in Newt’s presence has already brought back the kind of internal monologue that he inherited after the drift. He’d refused to indulge in it anymore, after Newt left, but here they are now.

 

Here they are, kissing, except then Newt isn’t - his lips slow and slacken against Hermann’s. Before Newt can do anything else, Hermann pulls away quickly, takes a step back. Instinctively, he feels he should apologize, but he also absolutely does not want to; it wouldn’t be truthful if he did. Before he can decide what to say, can lift his gaze from somewhere in the vicinity of Newt’s knees, Newt steps back into Hermann like he’s drawn there, wraps on hand around Hermann’s forearm and with the other grabs the front of his shirt.

 

It’s familiar and unfamiliar all at once. This is how Newt used to grab him, to push him away from someone he was about to start yelling at, to drag him away from someone who was being unkind to one or both of them. And yet never before has it been in this context, Newt’s mouth red from kissing, Newt the one who’s gaining support from the position; he looks confused and overwhelmed and not at all like he’s rejecting Hermann. 

 

Hermann brings his arm up again and cautiously places it in the middle of Newt’s back, and Newt’s grip turns more comfortable for them both. After a moment, Newt takes another step into Hermann, leaning forward to rest his forehead against Hermann’s shoulder. Hermann sighs and tilts his head to rest his cheek against the top of Newt’s head.

 

“I suppose we should have started with hello,” he says, and Newt snorts against his chest.

 

“When have we ever done that?” Newt asks. “No, really, I think the answer is actually never. Woulda shocked me just as much.”

 

The sound of Newt’s rambling is almost more of a relief to Hermann than having him in his arms. He isn’t sure, though, how it will be received if he pulls Newt closer, so he settles for rubbing his hand slowly up and down his back. Newt loosens up again, shifts so that his temple is against Hermann’s shoulder instead, and wraps his arms loosely around Hermann’s waist.

 

“I missed you,” Hermann says.

 

Newt lets out a little puff of breath, not quite a laugh.

 

“The part of me that’s now doesn’t believe that because of all the stuff I did,” he says, “and the part of me that’s before doesn’t believe you would ever admit to that.”

 

“Maybe before I wouldn’t have,” Hermann agrees. “But I mean it now.”

 

Newt pulls back and looks up at Hermann for a long moment, his eyebrows drawn together. He brings up one hand to Hermann face, cupping his jaw, his thumb just barely touching the corner of Hermann’s mouth. The confused expression remains throughout.

 

“Newton,” Hermann says, concerned, “I apologize for springing this on you. Don’t - we can act like it didn’t happen, if that’s what you want, or -”

 

“I don’t know what I want, that’s the problem,” Newt says. “Or - yes I do, but - not all of me wants the same thing?”

 

He moves his hand from Hermann’s face to his own hair, tugging in a way that Hermann is familiar with, but harder. Hermann reaches up and grabs his hand, pulls it to his chest and keeps it there.

 

“It’s like,” Newt starts again, “now that they’re gone, I feel like everything that happened while they were here - was fake. Didn’t really happen. It’s lost time. And I feel like I’m still the same as I was before all of this, like I - I stagnated. But then there’s also the part of my brain that’s got all the trauma and the fucked up memories and - I feel like they’re two completely separate parts of my brain and they want two completely separate things.”

 

“What do they want?” Hermann asks, stroking his thumb along Newt’s knuckles.

 

Phrasing the question in this way sends a chill down Hermann’s spine; it’s reminiscent of speaking about the precursors. There’s something to that connection, maybe. Newt is used to being part of a hivemind, or at least living with one inside his head. Maybe it’s natural, now, for him to think of separate thoughts as coming from separate points of origin.

 

“I,” Newt says, and he looks at Hermann’s mouth again. “I wanted to be with you then, but I didn’t think it’d really happen, and I feel like - you’ve changed and I’m the same, and I don’t know what to expect from you. And if we - we’re off balance, we probably don’t want the same things, and I’m - like this, now. I’m scared. And I know that you would make me feel better but I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t do that to you. Make you deal with any of this.”

 

He shakes his head and moves to take a step back, so Hermann lets go of his hand and cups his face, keeping him close.

 

“Why not?” Hermann asks. “I want you to. I wanted to be with who you were then and I want to be with whoever you figure out you are now. I  _ want _ to help you. I’ve had so many different expectations for our relationship over the years that at some point I had to throw them all out. You won’t disappoint me.”

 

Newt’s mouth drops open again, and it takes a significant amount of willpower for Hermann not to kiss him.

 

“That being said,” he continues, “you’re right that we need to get to know each other again, and you need to get to know yourself. Whatever you decide you do or don’t want from me, I will be here, because first and foremost, you are my friend. My closest friend.”

 

“What if my mind stays like this?” Newt asks, wrapping his hand around Hermann’s wrist. “What if I’m always conflicted? What if I always have different voices telling me I want different things?”

 

“Newton, everyone is conflicted,” Hermann says, latching onto a sudden burst of hope. “Everyone has doubts and everyone has multiple paths to evaluate, and they make choices anyway. You haven’t been allowed to make choices in such a long time, and you’ve grown used to having all of those opinions in your mind - how much space did they allow you to take up, in there? How many of your own thoughts did they let you have?”

 

Newt frowns, but thoughtfully.

 

“I remember their thoughts more than my own,” he says slowly. “I feel like the space I had was mostly reactionary, you know, like, I had the capacity to not want to do whatever they were doing. But I never really had the room to think about what I wanted to be doing instead, toward the end.”

 

“You’re used to fighting against what you’re being told to do, in there,” Hermann says, nodding. “I think that instinct is carrying over and you’re fighting your own thoughts because you’re not used to them being there, because you’re used to them being an intruder’s thoughts.” 

 

“You’re so smart,” Newt says urgently, his grip tightening on Hermann’s wrist. “God, I never felt like I could really compliment you before because, you know, we had already established the way that we interacted but - but we can change that now. I don’t really - I have too many thoughts about what I wanna do instead of what we used to do but I know I wanna tell you how smart you are.”

 

Hermann huffs out a disbelieving laugh. He can feel the smile stretching across his face.

 

“Aw, look at you,” Newt says quietly, to himself. “Man, I really - I wanna kiss you. Most of me does. Most of me thinks that sounds like a pretty solid plan.”

 

Hermann’s not sure what he should do here. He doesn’t want to make Newt’s choices for him, doesn’t want to tell him he shouldn’t do anything until he’s certain because that might not be a metric Newt ever feels he can reach again. And yet Hermann knows how difficult it will be if they do this now, do this intermittently, and then Newt decides it’s not what he wants after all.

 

He’s fairly certain, though, that the only way they’re going to figure this out is through it, instead of around it, or by avoiding it.

 

“I agree with most of you,” Hermann replies.

 

“Wow, come here,” Newt says, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him down into a kiss.

 

This time, Newt doesn’t falter.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [ch3ry1b10ss0m](http://ch3ry1b10ss0m.tumblr.com)


End file.
